Summary
A prince happens upon Rapunzel, high in her tower. He calls out to her, but she has trouble understanding his requests from so far away, creating hilarious results.
Review
So funny and so cute! A great fractured fairy tale. I am building a series of fractured fairy tales for school, and this is top on my list!
5 out of 5 stars
AR level of 2.7
Recommended for: readers 4 to 9, fans of fractured fairy tales as well as the original princess stories, teachers, classroom/school/home libraries
Cautions: none
This is a clever re-telling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Three little goats clop, clop, clop over the bridge and wake up a cranky troll in the process. If they keep it up, he is going to eat them!
Mother Goat understands Mr. Troll's frustration and lack of sleep, so she comes up with a solution that gets her three Billy Goats Fluff over the bridge quietly and helps Mr. Troll get some much needed rest. Such a cute and fun story! The illustrations are colorful and engaging. One of my favorites from Tiger Tales this fall.
4.5 out of 5 stars
Summary
A flamingo and an anteater narrate a story about the goat of Bible patriarch, Jacob. When Jacob asks a servant for a coat of many colors for his favorite son, Joseph, the servant, who wasn't paying attention, thinks he says "goat" of many colors. So Gus is plucked from the herd and painted many colors. Embarassed, he runs away. In the wilderness, Gus meets a group of wild goats. Gus is so unusual, with his many colors, that the wild goats make him their leader. An act of heroism on Gus' part exposes him as a regular goat and Gus learns to accept himself they way he is.
Review
The narrators are great comic relief, and the story itself is a clever twist to a familiar Bible story. Great fun!
4 out of 5 stars
Recommended for: Kids under 10, Sunday school teachers with a sense of humor, fans of fractured fairy tales
Cautions: none.
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Summary
Story tellers all these years have completely misunderstood the whole story of the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs. The wolf's name is really Alexander and he wasn't trying to do the pigs any harm. He only wanted to borrow a cup of sugar to make a birthday cake for his grandma - he was just being a good grandson. Is it his fault that he had a horrible, sneezy sort of cold and the pigs were such poor house builders?
Review
When I posted on Facebook that I was going to be reading this book with my "mentee" through In2Books, I received several comments from young adults that they absolutely loved this book. I can see why. Clever re-telling of the story from the wolf's perspective. Just the sort of "fractured fairy tale" I love.
4 out of 5 stars
Recommended for: children 10 and under, readers who like fairy tales or who like stories that skewer fairy tales
Cautions: none
[I am an Amazon Associate. If you link to Amazon from one of my blogs and buy something, I receive a small portion of the purchase price.]
Summary
[I bought this as part of a 3-pk of "Fractured Fairy Tales" from Scholastic. This one was the best of the three]
Humpty Dumpty has had his big fall and decides never to climb a wall again. He's lost his purpose and sits around watching TV in his underwear. His friends try to get him moving again and others tease him. But when Humpty sees one of the king's horses trapped on a high cliff, he'll have to decide if he can climb to the rescue after all.
Review
Funny and clever retelling of the classic rhyme. I am a fan of "fractured" or twists on the old, familiar tales. This one was a winner.
4 out of 5 stars
Recommended for: children under 8, library story times, classroom story times, example of fairy tales/fractured fairy tales
Cautions: none
[I am an Amazon Associate. If you link to Amazon from one of my blogs and buy something, I receive a small portion of the purchase price.]
Two great graphic novels.
First is Rapunzel's story - it starts fairly close to the original. Then Rapunzel escapes her "tower" (a tree) and she meets up with Jack and they try to make their way back to Mother Gothel's fortress to ruin her and save Rapunzel's real mother. Lots of great adventure - fighting sea monsters, coyotes and a horned bunny - and great hair.
In Jack's story, Jack and Rapunzel head home to make things up to Jack's mother from the whole beanstalk fiasco. But when they get there, they discover that the giants have taken over, Jack's mother is being held hostage to bake the giant's bread, and a friend has become a foe.
Both stories are well told and well drawn. There are plenty of good twists and reveals. Both books are "chunky" reads - well worth the price with heavy paper and great color. Jack is over 140 pages in hard cover.
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I love traditional fairy tales - and their twisted cousins - things like The Fairy Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1) (Bk. 1)
and the movie Hoodwinked (Widescreen Edition)
So, I saw this book at the bookstore recently and had to give it a try. I was not disappointed. It is an anthology, which I have come to appreciate more and more in the past few years. I can dig into a short story and then walk away from the book for a day or two if life gets busy. I can also try out a handfull of different authors to see what new characters and styles I might like.
In this book, my favorite tales were Jack and the Genetic Beanstalk by Robert E. Vardeman (Jack goes looking for answers at an agriculture corporation and discovers a giant problem), A Charming Murder by Mary Louise Eklund (a twist on the Cinderella story), and Capricious Animistic Tempter by Mickey Zucker Reichart (Puss in Boots). The stories generally have a dark tone, especially compared the Disney version of some of these Tales, and some are darker than others. If you like a twist on the expected, check out these Fairy Tales.
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